Sunday, July 8, 2012

My Shade and Sculpture Garden

Today I wanted to show you a little part of my garden. The newest part. See that little patch behind the flowers there? That was our original garden; the first one we put in when we moved to this house. Unfortunately, we didn't foresee that in a couple of years it would be totally covered by the shade of the surrounding trees. After the first two years nothing we planted there did well, so we turned half of it into a compost pile and tried other garden experiments on the rest.

Finally this spring I decided to turn it into a shade and sculpture garden. It took me about an hour and about $50 (for plants and mulch) and it's a pretty vast improvement.

I went through the shade section at Lowe's and picked out these Hostas, Astilbes, and Heuchera (the red one). I planted them and covered the whole plot with a thick layer of cedar mulch.

I added some large rocks we had laying around and a few sculpture-type things I had made. This mosaic bird bath was my mother's day present to me last year. I asked my husband to just get me all the materials so I could make it. Maybe that's weird, but he was relieved to not have to think of something to get me and I was happy to make something that I had been wanting for the garden. Win-Win. : ) You can find the tutorial from Family Fun here. The pot underneath is actually missing a huge chunk out of the back side, so I couldn't use it to plant in anymore, but it was perfect for the base of this because you can never tell it's broken since no one really goes on that side. I love repurposed things. Hooray for second chances!

This bird sculpture was also from Family Fun (I know, I know IS there anything I've done that didn't come from that magazine?!). You can find the tutorial for this one here.

These little garden critters were hand cut and sanded by my Grandfather the last summer he was alive, and hand paint by my Grandmother. I love them, because there's so much love in them. The set includes these birds, a worm, a ladybug and a fish.

I love the new garden. It is a serene pretty place that requires basically no upkeep. Just what I needed. If you are looking to do just a little gardening or have a shady spot maybe this kind of garden is for you. I also like the combination of the "sculptures" with the shade plants. Since shade plants don't tend to have a lot of blossoms, I think the critters and craft projects add some needed color.

We will stroll through the veggie gardens soon. Happy gardening friends!